Southold: Coastal Parks, History and Wine

For your trip planning, Southold offers a range of themes: coastal and dune landscapes, historic sites, and vineyards and tastings. If you’re looking for hotels for your stay, this focus can help you organize your visits. Orient Point combines beaches and nature watching; Sound View Dunes features a variety of habitats and trails, while the Southold Historical Museum maintains historic buildings. Mattebella Vineyards rounds out the selection with a vineyard tour and tasting.

Coastal Parks and Nature Experiences

Goldsmith's Inlet County Park is a 34-acre nature park on Long Island Sound and is home to diverse wildlife. Orient Point County Park is located at the eastern tip of the Town of Southold and covers 48 acres. Its features include a one-mile-long beach, a 0.5-mile hiking trail, opportunities for birdwatching and surf fishing, and views of Long Island Sound. At Orient Point, the beach, trail, and these activities are part of the park description; Goldsmith's Inlet is characterized as a nature park with diverse wildlife.

Sound View Dunes Park covers 57 acres of beach, dune, wetland, and forest habitat. Its trails offer views of Long Island Sound and access to the beach and maritime freshwater interdunal swale. For planning purposes, the focus can be distinguished as follows: Orient Point explicitly mentions birdwatching and surf fishing; at Sound View Dunes, the trails combine views and beach access with a mix of different habitats.

Historic Buildings and Cultural Heritage

The Southold Historical Museum maintains more than a dozen buildings in Southold dating from 1750 to 1900. These include a lighthouse, several houses, barns, outbuildings, and commercial buildings. Many of these buildings are open to the public at various times of the year. If you’d like to visit several houses, check visiting hours for your travel dates, as opening times vary throughout the year.

Downs Farm Preserve is located in the southwestern part of the Town of Southold on Long Island’s North Fork. It includes the site of a Native American fort, scenic forest areas, and tidal wetlands. Ecologically, the preserve is designated a New York State Significant Coastal Fish and Wildlife Habitat and is part of the Suffolk County Peconic Bay Estuary Critical Environmental Zone and the Peconic Pinelands Maritime Reserve. Visitors can experience the natural beauty and cultural setting of a National Historic Landmark there. The preserve also conveys the culture and life of the Corchaug and the agricultural heritage of the North Fork.

Vineyard and Tasting

At Mattebella Vineyards, the vineyard tour and tasting combines a short tour of the vineyard with insights into sustainable practices, the grape varieties grown, and Mattebella’s gardens. Other formats include wine flight tastings, wine and food pairings, interactive vineyard experiences, and VIP barrel tastings. The tour is available daily from April through November in the 11:00–12:00 and 11:30–12:30 time slots. Reservations for tastings are required on weekends. Check the schedule and current offerings in advance, as times and offerings may change.

Discover more destinations: Quogue, Montauk, East Marion, Southampton, Melville, Port Jefferson Station, Peconic, Greenlawn.

For the overview of the wider area: Suffolk.